Unwanted thoughts are an extremely common symptom of anxiety disorders. Anxiety is the type of mental health disorder that specifically causes negative thinking, and the inability to control the thoughts that come into your head. For some people, anxiety itself can be caused by these thoughts.
They're usually harmless. But if you obsess about them so much that it interrupts your day-to-day life, this can be a sign of an underlying mental health problem. Intrusive thoughts can be a symptom of anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Some of the biggest culprits are anger, fear, stress, and grief. Sometimes we're not even aware of these emotions, but they still affect our behavior. Talking to someone about your feelings and writing in a journal are great ways to sort out what you're feeling and why. Restlessness.
"Frequent racing thoughts may be related to anxiety disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), trauma, or other mental health issues that need exploring," says Fabrett.
While overthinking itself is not a mental illness, it is associated with conditions including depression, anxiety, eating disorders and substance use disorders. Rumination can be common in people who have chronic pain and chronic illness as well, taking the form of negative thoughts about that pain and healing from it.
Racing thoughts in ADHD can be a mental manifestation of restlessness, a result of your brain's unique self-regulation processes. While sometimes confused with racing thoughts in bipolar disorder, an ADHD active mind may last for an hour, a day, or a couple of days.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has two main parts: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwelcome thoughts, images, urges, worries or doubts that repeatedly appear in your mind. They can make you feel very anxious (although some people describe it as 'mental discomfort' rather than anxiety).
Impulses and intrusive thoughts are complete opposites. People with impulses act first and think later. People with intrusive thoughts have control over their behaviors and are over thinkers.
Repetitive anxious thoughts can precede, accompany, or follow a period of nervousness, anxiety, fear, and stress, or occur "out of the blue" and for no apparent reason. This symptom can range in intensity from slight, to moderate, to severe.
Anxiety can both cause weird thoughts and be caused by weird thoughts. Some types of anxiety, including obsessive compulsive disorder, are based on these strange and unexpected thoughts. Chronic anxiety can also alter thinking patterns, as can sleep loss from anxiety related insomnia.
Stress. Stress is one of the “usual suspects” when you can't seem to stop thinking. Stress causes your body to release cortisol, and cortisol helps you stay alert. This means that your brain stays alert, too — even when you don't want it to.
While both mental health conditions involve repetitive worrying, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often engage in unwanted and repetitive behavior in response to their worry. People with anxiety, however, tend to overthink their worry, but don't act in specific responsive manners.
One common similarity is the feeling of losing control. This is common among those with anxiety attacks. During an anxiety attack, a person may feel emotionless or have trouble concentrating on the world around them.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: When Unwanted Thoughts or Repetitive Behaviors Take Over. People who are distressed by recurring, unwanted, and uncontrollable thoughts or who feel driven to repeat specific behaviors may have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
People with OCD tend to have obsessive thoughts, which they try to prevent by engaging in repetitive rituals, or compulsions. In contrast, a person with ADHD typically presents with excessive hyperactivity and impulsivity and difficulty focusing on one task at a time.
Intrusive thoughts don't typically result in any kind of behavior done to reduce the anxiety they cause or prevent some bad event associated with them from occurring. People with OCD, however, are likely to respond to obsessions by performing compulsions.
repeating words in their head. thinking "neutralising" thoughts to counter the obsessive thoughts. avoiding places and situations that could trigger obsessive thoughts.
Common obsessive thoughts in OCD include:
Fear of being contaminated by germs or dirt or contaminating others. Fear of losing control and harming yourself or others. Intrusive sexually explicit or violent thoughts and images. Excessive focus on religious or moral ideas.
Mild OCD can look like regular OCD but to a lesser intensity, such as: Washing your hands after certain food prep. Counting the number of times you may step/walk in the home. Some hoarding behaviors such as keeping specific types of items.
It's when your thoughts get caught in a loop, and you go over and over the same thoughts without feeling better or finding a resolution. Your thinking might get stuck on day to day worries or on future events.
People with ADHD will have at least two or three of the following challenges: difficulty staying on task, paying attention, daydreaming or tuning out, organizational issues, and hyper-focus, which causes us to lose track of time.